Tension Stool
Wrapping 1.2mm aircraft plywood around a bare-bones maple frame, Tension Stool explores how unconventional wood products can be used in seating. Its name comes from the strength hidden below the seat: 4 cords tensioned by a system of 3 distinct knots.
Inspired by the Scandinavian design around me while living in Denmark, Tension Stool was designed with simplicity, playfulness, and unconventionality in mind.
Vital to the final result was the analog process through which it was realized. From initial sketches and scale models to full-scale drawings and construction, Tension Stool never met a computer.
4 slightly tapered legs connected by 2 rows of dowels comprise the slim but rigid frame. The 30mm dowels serve the dual roles of providing structure to the frame and holding tension in the cords. Pieces are tightly joined with dominos and wood glue. A traditional Danish soap finish protects the frame while maintaining the natural beauty of the maple.
Running beneath the thin seat, the stool’s cords continue out through the plywood, around the upper dowels, back behind the plywood, around the lower dowels, only to pop out again through eyelet-reinforced holes and into a series of knots beneath the whole array.
Knot 1: Figure-8, one of many possible knots that create a non-slipping loop, but personally important as it is the most important knot to know in rock climbing.
Knot 2: Trucker’s Hitch, acts as pulley to tension cord and seat.
Knot 3: Taught-Line Hitch, locks array tight in place.
Utilizing plywood that is less than 3/64 of an inch meant not just accepting failure, but pursuing it. There are many ways to snap and tear a crispy veneer sandwich when one sits on it. There are far less ways not to. Testing didn’t cease until one of those few ways was found.
Tension Stool was fully designed and built by me as a project for a Furniture Design class. Valuable insight and critique was provided by faculty and fellow students of the program, and has helped cement my belief that collaboration and critique are important to the design process.
